Would It Kill You To Stop Doing That?

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Though J. J., Aiko, and the woman behind the desk at our hotel were wonderful fonts of information, there was one bit of Japanese etiquette that I felt uncomfortable broaching with them. This, of course, was the topic of perilous Japanese toilets. These bad boys, as you probably know, often come equipped with a console arm that is loaded down with buttons — one to summon a bidet feature, one to create flushing sounds (to mask embarrassing sounds), a seat warmer, an air dryer. The Japanese toilet, it seems, is prepared for anything.

One night, upon entering the single-toilet men’s room of a restaurant, I was slightly surprised to be greeted thereat by the toilet’s seat automatically lifting itself up. Hello. Fortunately, I had to pee. I did so, and then left the bathroom, the seat still up. As I left the bathroom, I thought, Surely I wasn’t meant to lower the seat myself, either manually or by button? Or was I? That the restaurant was fairly crowded with diners only heightened my anxiety and potential humiliation. I imagined a CEO in a three-piece suit entering the bathroom and being thrown into moral crisis … Or a restaurant employee forced to cleanse the bathroom of my transgression via some elaborate ceremony featuring incense and flashing swords … Banana ritual at dawn.So I devised a game plan: Walk out of bathroom, close door, stand in front of door, and wait fifteen seconds to see if seat goes down again; if anyone should see me closing door and waiting in front of it, I’d quickly reenter bathroom pretending to have dropped wallet or important legal document.

I closed the door and waited; no men in need showed up. When I reentered the bathroom, the seat was still up. Meanwhile, the toilet clicked and thrummed in a state of almost military readiness; it sounded like it was about to produce small feet, walk out of the bathroom, and get on with its day.I looked at the console arm and saw a series of illustrations — a spray of water; some squiggly, vaporous lines; and something that looked like an occluded front on a TV weather map. I started to reach out to touch one of the buttons when a small voice inside my head said No. Don’t do a Diana, I thought.

Jittery, I returned to my table, where I would describe my expression as “darty-eyed.”

From the book WOULD IT KILL YOU TO STOP DOING THAT? A Modern Guide to Manners. Copyright (c) 2012 by Henry Alford. Reprinted by permission of Twelve/Hachette Book Group, New York, NY. All rights reserved.